With the growing popularity of the Internet and networks in general, there is a trend towards centralized network services and centralized network service providers. To be profitable, however, network service providers need to constantly maintain and if possible enlarge their customer base and their profits. Since leased line services are coming under increased competition, profit margins have been decreasing for these providers. Thus, an increased number of providers are trying to attract small and medium sized businesses by providing centralized network management.
Network providers are offering Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to interconnect various customer sites that are geographically dispersed. VPNs are of great interest to both providers and to their customers because they offer privacy and cost efficiency through network infrastructure sharing. There has been difficulty providing this service, however, due to address conflicts, security problems, scalability issues and performance problems.
Various VPN models have been proposed with various degrees of security, privacy, scalability, ease of deployment and manageability. Some providers have even attempted to solve these problems using Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks. However the MPLS models proposed still suffer from some of the same problems discussed above (i.e. scalability, etc.).
Accordingly there exists the need for a scalable system which allows the implementation of separate virtual private networks over common infrastructure while providing security and sufficient performance to each network.
The need further exists for such a system which allows for communicating private traffic through a shared network.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a scalable system which allows the implementation of separate virtual private networks over common infrastructure while providing security and sufficient performance to each network.
It is another object of the invention to provide such a system which employs MPLS.
It is another object of the invention to provide such a system which allows for communication of private traffic through a shared network.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description thereof.